Wisconsin Congress Members Condemn Musk Takeover

Tammy Baldwin and Glenn Grothman.

Businessman Elon Musk‘s seeming takeover of major government departments is causing alarm among members of Wisconsin’s Democratic congressional delegation. The billionaire and major financial backer of Donald Trump‘s campaign for the presidency has been given unprecedented authority by Trump to make sweeping changes to the U.S. government.

“The Elon Musk takeover of the executive branch is already causing chaos, confusion, and putting Americans’ sensitive information at risk, including their Social Security numbers and banking information,” said Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) in a statement to Urban Milwaukee.

Democratic U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin offered this tweet on X, the website owned by Musk: “Elon Musk—an unelected billionaire—cannot just force his way into gaining access to Wisconsinites’ most sensitive information and our nation’s checkbook so he can slash programs Wisconsin families rely on. Is he coming after Social Security? Veterans healthcare? It has to stop.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Madison) offered these tweets: “When Elon Musk bought Donald Trump, he bought access to your private financial information. The Scammer-in-Chief has crypto bro interns digging through everything from your bank accounts to Social Security number… Let’s be clear: No one elected Elon Musk. The world’s richest man should not have backdoor access to our government’s financial systems. How much more control of our country will the Republican Majority give to billionaire elites?”

All were reacting to Musk and a group of assistants, calling themselves the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, seizing control over the federal government’s human resources department, the Office of Personnel Management, and gaining access to the U.S Treasury Department’s payment system in what appears to be an effort to monitor and reduce government spending.

But that is just the start of Musk’s goals, as the New York Times has reported. Musk and his allies have made “aggressive incursions into at least half a dozen government agencies,” including taking over the United States Digital Service, announcing the shutdown U.S.A.I.D., a key source of foreign assistance, and discussed eliminating 50% of the General Services Administration‘s budget.

Musk and company are also “waging a largely unchecked war against the federal bureaucracy…They bombarded federal employees with messages suggesting they were lazy and encouraging them to leave their jobs.”

“Billionaire Elon Musk’s power grab continues to come at the expense of the American people,” Moore declared. “Democrats will fight back any way we can.”

“I’m committed to getting Elon Musk out of the federal government,” Pocan tweeted. “Are you? He needs to feel the pain as he dismantles government services to get a big tax cut. That’s what this is all about. Every lever we have – legislative, judicial, public pressure. Musk needs to go now.”

Wisconsin’s Republican members of Congress, including U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, and representatives Bryan Steil, Tom Tiffany, Tony Wied, Scott Fitzgerald and Derrick Van Orden have so far offered no criticism of Musk’s efforts in press releases or on Twitter.

Veteran Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman of Greenbush, whose district includes much of Ozaukee County and a mostly rural area to the north and west, told Urban Milwaukee he’d heard little from fellow Republicans about it. “I’ve just gotten back to Washington,” he said, “and the few congressman I talked to, I don’t think there would be a lot of concern.”

What about the shutdown of the U.S.A.I.D. office? “I think U.S.A.I.D is kind of screwed up,” Grothman said. “I don’t think they shut it down forever. They’re going to shut it down for a couple months… I guess I don’t know that,” he added.

Musk described it this way on X: “We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” he said on Monday.

But Grothman speculated that some elected official okayed this. “He’s not a cabinet member,” he said of Musk. “He’s just a guy. I assume if he took action to shut down the office of  A.I.D. someone in the executive branch is literally signing an order — and I don’t know for sure — saying this should be done.”

Grothman said he expected Republicans to meet and discuss Musk’s actions.

At least four lawsuits have been filed in federal court to challenge Musk’s authority and the actions taken, “but it remains to be seen if judicial review can keep up with Mr. Musk,” the Times speculated.

Nor is it clear what Democrats, who are a minority in both houses of Congress, can do to prevent what appears to be an unconstitutional series of actions by Musk. Only a strong stand by Republican members of Congress seems likely to have any influence on Trump.